Instead of tapping on the tab icon in Chrome, you should know that you can also reveal the Tab Manager with a simple swipe gesture.
Swipe gestures are becoming quite popular within the mobile market. Some websites will let you swipe left/right to go from article to article, and even Google implemented this with AMP for select news topics. There will always be a way to manually do something on mobile even if you aren’t a fan of swipe gestures.
Once you learn them for a specific application or service though, then it is generally quicker and easier to just use the gestures.
There are a number of hidden swipe gestures that Google has built into Chrome. I’ll be talking about a few of these this week with today’s Android tip focusing on the Tab Manager within Chrome. To the right of the Address Bar, you can tap on the Square icon (that has the number inside it) and this will launch the Tab Manager for Chrome. But you might be interested in knowing there’s a swipe gesture that will launch this too.
Chrome’s Tab Manager Gesture
- View a website within Chrome
- Make sure the Address Bar is visible (and not off the screen)
- Swipe down from the Address Bar to launch the Tab Manager
Explanation
There’s not much to explain this tip, it’s not a huge feature and it’s not complicated at all. If you want a demonstration of this swipe gesture for Chrome, then be sure to check the embedded video above. You just need to make sure you’re viewing a website and that the Address Bar is visible. Technically you don’t even have to be viewing a website, and this gesture will still work on Chrome’s New Tab page.
Most people will want to use this while they’re currently viewing a website though, and it’s easy to explain when the Address Bar is visible at the top. So once you see Chrome’s Address Bar at the top of the page, you can simple to a swipe down gesture with your thumb or finger first tapping inside the Address Bar. You want to do this in one smooth motion and it should activate pretty easily.
As your thumb or finger slides down the screen, you should see Chrome’s currently opened tabs start to spread out on the screen. This is the same Tab Manager that appears when you tap on the Square icon with the number in it, it’s just activated in a different way. So everything will work just as you expect it to. Once you see the tab you want to open up, you just want to tap on it like normal and it will go expand to cover up the screen.
Again, it’s just a simple gesture but it’s one that is hidden and not well known. There are a number of swipe gestures within Chrome and I’ll be talking about a few of them this week. It one of them doesn’t work, or if I miss out on one that you think should be talked about, be sure to contact me to let me know (there’s a contact link at the bottom or every page on the website).
